JOHN ANTHONY VOLPE was green before green was cool. His path
in politics was unusual, but once he grasped power, he used it with a tenacity
that amazed those who underestimated him. On the anniversary of his 100th birthday
tomorrow, history salutes this determined, energetic son of Italian immigrant
As a Republican governor of Massachusetts,
he neither ignored nor defied the Democratic Legislature, but worked with it to
improve higher education and mental health programs. As US Secretary of
Transportation, his record is relevant today. He began as a proud advocate
of American highways, then developed doubts. He stopped several interstates, boosted
mass transit, and saved passenger trains. Without John Volpe, Amtrak
would be a mirage.
Born in Wakefield on Dec. 8, 1908, Volpe
worked as a plasterer, attended Wentworth Institute, and started the Volpe
Construction Co. at a time in Massachusetts
when "Italian-American construction contractor" did not seem an
attractive credential, but Volpe was honest. He served three years in the Navy
before eyeing a political career.
In 1960, Bay State Democrats were a fractious lot. Volpe's opponent, Joseph D. Ward, emerged from a five-way
primary with 30 percent of the vote and a lot of enemies. Nonetheless, Bay
State Republicans trembled at the approaching landslide for presidential
candidate John F. Kennedy. But Volpe wooed ticket-splitters. JFK carried the
state by 510,000 votes while the GOP gubernatorial candidate won by 138,000.
In 1962, the Democratic nominee had a smoother ride. Endicott (Chub)
Peabody, son of an Episcopal bishop and grandson of Groton School's founder, was an All-American lineman at Harvard
in 1941. In previous campaigns, he tried to persuade mostly Irish Democrats
that an "all-green" statewide ticket unwelcoming to other ethnic
groups would not succeed.
Democratic leaders considered Peabody
eccentric but decided to give him his chance against the popular Volpe. One
Democrat, however, backed his fellow Cantabrigian
wholeheartedly. Representative Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill
Jr. managed Peabody's campaign, aligning him to two Kennedys, the
president and the 30-year-old senatorial candidate, Edward M. Kennedy.
O'Neill dispatched Peabody family members to campaign in small towns while he
and other Irish-surnamed politicos accompanied Peabody. Democrats boasted of a balanced
ticket with the nominee for lieutenant governor, a young Quincy lawyer, Francis X. Bellotti.
The party plastered the Commonwealth with "Kennedy-Peabody-Bellotti" signs. Volpe still felt confident, until the
vote.
My assignment as a Globe reporter that night was routine: follow the
governor through his victory celebrations. It was instead a long, quiet night.
No exit polls then, nor computers, so Volpe tried to get his news from me. The
governor handed me his telephone, asking, "What numbers does John Harris
have?," seeking the Globe editor's
wide knowledge of the Commonwealth's
precincts.
At Volpe's Park Square apartment that night, I
learned that Jennie Volpe was generous in offering her excellent Italian
cookies. I also learned the depth of this governor's
religious faith. His father, Vito, had been anticlerical, he told me. "But
Marty, it's no accident that I was
born on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception," he said as he insisted on
taking me to early Mass at the Franciscans'
Arch Street
shrine. He was proud of his status as Knight of Columbus, Knight of Malta,
Knight of Jerusalem, and Knight Commander in the Order of the Holy Sepulcher.
On that election night, he would need his faith. In the
cities, Democrats gave up ticket-splitting for party loyalty. In the towns, the
returns showed a pattern not seen since, an Episcopalian voting bloc. Peabody's victory, and Volpe's
loss (in 1962) confirmed by a recount, was two-tenths of a percentage point,
fewer than 6,000 votes.
When he walked that lonely walk down the State House steps early in 1963,
Volpe looked like a man through with politics. But he ran for governor in
1964, won narrowly, then won easily in 1966, when the era of
four-year terms began. He did not finish his term because he was called to Washington to serve in
Richard Nixon's Cabinet.
Volpe had national ambitions and ran for vice president by running
symbolically for president. In 1968, he liked both Nelson Rockefeller and
Nixon, but endorsed neither. As Nixon grimly recalled in his memoirs,
"Gov. John Volpe, one of my early supporters, had insisted on running as a
favorite son candidate. Thanks to write-in votes, Rockefeller managed to squeeze
out a half-percentage point victory over Volpe. The victory was embarrassing to
Volpe, irritating to me, and a great boost to Rockefeller." Volpe lost his
home state by fewer than 500 votes.
At the Republican convention in Miami
Beach, the Secret Service had been alerted to guard
Volpe, because Nixon had narrowed his V.P. choice to two. Chuck Colson, then a
junior Nixon aide, argued that an enthusiastic campaigner who happened to be an
Italian Catholic would help the ticket. But Nixon chose another Mediterranean
ethnic, Governor Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland.
In 1968, Volpe's consolation
prize was the Department of Transportation, with jurisdiction over air, sea,
and land travel. Highways were closest to his heart. President Eisenhower,
architect of the Interstate Highway System, named him the first Federal Highway
administrator in 1956. Kathleen Kilgore's
very good 1987 biography of Volpe quotes John Kenneth Galbraith calling the
governor a "compulsive road builder," to which Volpe replied, "I
am a compulsive everything. I like to get things done."
In D.C., the highway lobby, eagerly awaiting its champion, gradually became
disillusioned. First, Volpe helped rescue railroads, then started taking
seriously growing opposition to interstates in urban areas, the early stirrings
of green politics. Anti-highway sentiment at first evoked in Volpe Alec
Guinness in "Bridge on the River Kwai." As
Colonel Nicholson admires the bridge his men built for the Japanese, he asks
with tormented incredulity, "Blow up the bridge?"
Then, like the colonel, he did his duty. Volpe halted an interstate in New
Orleans, another in Memphis, then one in St. Louis. Boston's Inner Belt and Southwest Expressway were tougher calls
for Volpe because he had supported them for decades. He reluctantly agreed with
his chosen successor as governor, Francis W. Sargent,
who had sided with a coalition of opponents including Tip O'Neill, Fred Salvucci, and
Alan Lupo.
In 1972, he went to the heart of his heresy against relentless road-building
and sought to spread the wealth of the Highway Trust Fund. As he told Congress,
"Only by proper combination of highways and transit modes can progress be
made. Such progress will benefit auto and transit users alike."
After Nixon was reelected in 1972, he asked for the resignations of Cabinet
members. He named Volpe ambassador to Italy, a nifty job by any
standard. Volpe spent his last four years in public service amid acclaim and
popularity, then returned home for retirement and charity work. He died in
1994 at 86.
He was a man of short-to-medium height, but in his practicality and honesty
on behalf of the Commonwealth, in his vision for the nation, and with sparkling
good humor throughout, John A. Volpe stood commandingly tall.
Martin F. Nolan covered the State House and Washington for the Globe.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/12/07/john_volpe_the_visionary/
